This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn me some pots. I had no notion of a kiln such as the potters burn in, or of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but I placed three large pipkins, and two or three pots, in a pile, one upon another, and placed my firewood all round it, with a great heap of embers under them: I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside, and upon the top, till I saw the pots in the inside red hot quite through, and observed that they did not crack at all: when I saw them clear red, I led them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt, or run; for the sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would have run into glass, if I had gone on; so I slacked my fire gradually, till the pots began to abate of the red colour; and watching them all night that I might not let the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three very good, I will not say handsome, pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as hard burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly glazed with the running of the sand.
After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort of earthen-ware for my use; but I must needs say, as to the shapes of them, they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when I had no way of making them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would make pies that never learnt to raise paste.
No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold, before I set one upon the fire again with some water in it, to boil me some meat, which it did admirably well: and with a piece of kid, I made some very good broth, though I wanted oatmeal, and several other ingredients requisite to make it so good as I would have had it.
My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn in; for as to the mill, there was no thought of arriving to that perfection of art with one pair of hands. To supply this want, I was at a great loss; for, of all trades in the world, I was as perfectly unqualified for a stone-cutter as for any whatever; neither had I any tools to go about it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stone big enough to cut hollow, and make fit for a mortar, and could find none at all, except what was in the solid rock, and which I had no way to dig, or cut out; nor indeed were the rocks in the island of hardness sufficient, but were all of a sandy crumbling stone, which would neither bear the weight of a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without filling it with sand; so, after a great deal of time lost in searching for a stone, I gave it over, and resolved to look out a great block of hard wood, which I found indeed much easier; and getting one as big as I had strength to stir, I rounded it, and formed it on the outside with my axe and hatchet; and then, with the help of fire and infinite labour, made a hollow place in it, as the Indians in Brazil make their canoes. After this I made a great heavy pestle, or beater, of the wood called the iron-wood, and this I prepared and laid by against I had my next crop of corn, when I proposed to myself to grind, or rather pound, my corn, or meal, to make my bread.
My next difficulty was to make a sieve, or searce, to dress my meal, and part it from the bran and the husk, without which I did not see it possible I could have any bread. This was a most difficult thing, so much as but to think on; for, to be sure, I had nothing like the necessary things to make it with—I mean fine thin canvas, or stuff, to searce the meal through. And here I was at a full stop for many months; nor did I really know what to do: linen I had none left but what was mere rags; I had goat’s hair, but neither knew I how to weave or spin it; and had I known how, here were no tools to work it with. All the remedy that I found for this was, that at last I did remember I had among the seamen’s clothes which were saved out of the ship, some neckcloths of calico, or muslin; and with some pieces of these I made three small sieves, but proper enough for the work; and thus I made shift for some years. How I did afterwards, I shall show in its place.